jukeboxes
by frays
Summary: a series of separate onexshots with various pairings based off of songs that relate to the fic. varied genres, pairings, songs, and other–requests aways open.
1. royals

**Disclaimer | **I do not own the clique.

**Authors Note | **I should be updating "damned angels", but I've always loved onexshot collections, and ones based off of songs are always my favorite.

Various pairings included, some dedicated to my friends, some off of songs I love, and some songs requested.

If you would like to request a song, leave it in the reviews in a format of song title ; artist ; pairing.

**Dedication | **the first onexshot is dedicated to lily / indie misery, because I know how she loves music.

**Song | **royals by lorde.

**Pairing | **cam and claire.

* * *

Cameron Fisher had always been gullible, seen as sweet and dumb to the people around him and the people who watched him.

He was always in the spotlight, but when the light shone on the raven-haired boy, he was shadowed still by a Derrick Harrington or Harris Fisher. He was hidden behind the glory of those surrounding him, bathed in the glamour of those close to him.

He didn't have the blood to absorb the limelight–it bounced off of him and onto his peers, fading away quickly.

He was famous for his eyes, one green and one blue, but any conversation directed to the sidekick was always directed to either his infamous brother or star goalie of a best friend. Their light overpowered his, yet he refused to fade.

The people around clawed at each other for a breath of attention, but Cam was both too gullible and careless to desire the affections of those who would never matter to him.

He was unlike others, and though the people around him thought him strange, they loved the boy all the same. There was an air to Cam that was impossible to resent, and people were drawn to him like a moth to light.

When they were drawn, they were distracted by the star goalie that Cam was always beside.

Derrick James Harrington had more differences than they did similarities, but somehow, their personalities mixed well. While Derrick was charming, loud, and quick-witted, Cam was clumsy, naive, and on the slower side. At times, someone would toss an insult Cam's way, and he wouldn't have the faintest clue it was a jab.

Derrick was radiant, and everything he did attracted attention. Eyes followed his every movement, and there was scarcely a movement Derrick could make that wouldn't be documented.

Cam was often trapped in his own world, hidden within the walls of his wild imagination. His thoughts were fueled by nuclear energy, yet he was too wild to ever sit down and write his ideas.

His mind was brilliant, but his ideas were too plentiful to contain, and slipped away before he could pencil a single thought down on paper.

He was always too clumsy, too strange, or too hyper to settle down with someone, or commit to someone. He believed that there wasn't a soul that matched his, and each passing day brought him closer and closer to giving up the dream that someone could understand him.

Brilliant as he was, he had yet to realize that perfection was something hidden in the shadows, hard to achieve yet perfect once the lips meet.

.:.

Claire Lyons was always the odd one out of a group, an outcast wherever she went yet barely accepted by all.

She roamed by the girls with the name of perfection, the most beautiful and superficial girls in her town. She was constantly misunderstood by them, the blonde girl and her childish habits a mystery to them.

_Walk much, Claire?_

_Are you allergic to makeup? Then why are you acting like it'll give you a disease?_

_Try giving up the Keds, Kuh-laire. _

She was criticized by them, and yet they still stayed close to her–something about her presence calmed them, and they fought less with the blonde girl trapped in her imaginary world.

She was always next to Massie Block, and whenever she was spoke of, she was mentioned indirectly through the queen of their city.

She didn't mind remaining in the shadows–she had more time to be herself when she was left alone, and she found herself to be happier when eyes were off her.

She had never wanted to be queen, and she had never craved the diamonds the people around her bathed in. She was one of the poorer families of Westchester, but she didn't mind–she had always preferred Converse to Chanel, and she would much rather be comfortable in sweats and sneakers than look like a Barbie in gowns and glamour.

She often thought of her friends as dress-up dolls, plastering their bodies with designer labels and makeup to look like the most artificially beautiful doll.

Claire had never been desirable to men around her–she was beautiful, with white blonde hair and wide green eyes, but she wasn't the standard of beauty that everyone seemed to clamor around.

She was outshined by each of her friends–she was smart, but Kristen was smarter. She was funny, but Dylan was funnier. She was beautiful, but Alicia was seen as perfection. She was elegant, but Massie was seen as a glamorous goddess.

Her happiness came more from her imagination than it did from admiration, and she didn't crave the attention from the watching eyes around her as her peers did.

Claire was strange indeed, but she was strange in the way a book was–confusing, yet intricate, begging to be read.

.:.

It had taken years for the two matched souls to meet, but their first college year had brought them together, and intertwined their gentle souls.

Cam and Claire were alike even without meeting, and they had the same minds beyond their beautiful faces.

_This will be different. _

Their thoughts paved the same paths in their brilliant minds, and though the path was difficult to follow, the end of the road was the destination where the lovers would meet, and their hearts would become one.

.:.

Claire had always had trouble reading maps, so it wasn't much of a surprise when her mind directed her to the room 34B instead of 34D like the map read.

Her light skinned fingers drummed against the door she believed her roommate to be behind, thinking of ways to introduce herself to the stranger behind the door.

She hadn't expected to find a beautiful stranger with alluring eyes, standing behind the door, watching her as though he had never seen a woman before.

"I'm Cam." He said almost too quickly, skipping past a 'hello' to introduce him to the green-eyed girl.

They were both watching the other's eyes as though they were burning diamonds, brightened in the flesh by the flames that licked them.

"I…Claire." The boy with the crystalline eyes of two colors chuckled softly, the laugh a sound of genuine amusement that she had heard from her peers only a few times before.

The eyes that she was already infatuated by were filled with a certain adoration, watching her as though she would be ripped from his sight moments later. Cam seemed to be trying to memorize her light hair and wide eyes and cherish her unique beauty, watching her in a way that even she could see as admiration.

"I think I'm at the wrong room." Claire's words were slow, speaking after a long moment of silence that was more peaceful than uncomfortable.

Cam cracked a small smile, showing white teeth and red lips, "Want me to help walk you to your room, Claire?"

She handed him her schedule without speaking, blinking slowly through long-lashed eyes and turning away once he took the pink sheet of paper.

"Come on," The raven-haired boy lightly touched her shoulder, ushering her out of her room. Her spaghetti straps left her light shoulders bare, and she felt a remaining brush of heat by his fingers. "I know where this is."

Claire followed after him, watching his back and noticing slowly how tall he was, how light his skin was, and the way he walked.

When he turned to look at her, his eyes shocked her. Claire was unsure whether or not she would be able to forget his eyes, looking like sapphire and emerald stones against his light skin. His lips were ruby, and his hair was coal.

He seemed more like the making of her imagination, too fragile and beautiful to fit in with the harsh realities of the world around her.

.:.

Cam found it difficult to stop watching Claire for even a moment.

Her face was burned in his mind with green-eyed flames, yet she was similar to a drug in the way that Cam could never stop looking at her or wanting to touch her, both addictive and destructive.

He had found excuses as frequently as he could to bring himself close to her, and made as much of an effort to be near her as humanly possible.

Cam was sure Derrick knew, but he didn't mind–he wasn't scared that the green-eyed girl wouldn't return his affections.

Being near her was enough.

.:.

They had flown around each other for months by the day the meeting of their lips came, landing on the day of Claire's nineteenth birthday.

The materialistic girls who surrounded Claire had invited her to the beach for a bonfire, filled with alcohol, scattered clothing, and white sand to match her hair.

There was more attention on her peers than there was on the girl turning nineteen, but Claire was used to that. They were in love with being queens, and fought their way to royalty anywhere they went.

No one knew that the bonfire was Claire, and only one man noticed when she slipped away to the rocks, far from the action of the party.

"Claire?" A soft voice shattered the stillness the blonde girl had created, and she looked up quickly.

Her green eyes crashed with his emerald and sapphire ones, and he offered her the adoring smile that was always present when he looked to her.

"Cam? Why are you–"

"I wanted to wish you a happy birthday." His hand shifted to his pocket, "Should I sing to you?"

Claire laughed, "No, please."

"Then close your eyes."

"Why?"

"It's a secret." Her green eyes fluttered closed, and she felt hands brushing against her neck. The air that tickled her was cold, but his hands themselves were hot.

A brush of ice landed around her throat, and when her eyes opened, she found it to be a pendant of silver. "Cam,"

"It's nothing."

"I didn't compliment you yet."

"I felt it coming." He leant forwards to flip her pendant to the correct side, and she could feel the heat from his lips radiating onto hers.

"I did too." Claire whispered, her nonsensical words making sense to Cam.

She wasn't sure who moved forwards, but the closing of her eyes led to a shock of heat on her full lips, warm and disorienting.

Cam's lips were on hers, and he was kissing her.

_Cam is kissing me._

He was sitting next to her on the rock, his arms enclosed around her as his lips moved against her lips. Her body trembled lightly with the brush of sparks that came from his body, and chills and fire mixed ran over her body.

She was dizzy, unstable, and falling, but even her spinning mind assured her that she had never felt anything so delicate as kissing Cameron Fisher.

For once, she felt alive.

.:.

Love was blinding, but the meeting of the destined souls opened their eyes more than they believed was possible.

They were one entity, and their hearts tangled and intertwined so tightly that they were unsure that they could live apart from each other.

They would never need to.

In their imaginary world, they were the king and queen, and nothing else mattered.

They were royals in their fantasies, and together they ruled.

* * *

the ending was a bit fluffy, but cam & claire deserve that c:

hoped you liked it, lily!

**m**y** r**e**v**i**e**w **b**o**x **i**s **h**u**n**g**r**y**–**f**e**e**d **i**t**!**!**!**


	2. counting stars

**Disclaimer | **I do not own the clique.

**Authors Note | **I nearly finished this, but my computer shut down and deleted everything I had, so this is something of a revised copy.

**Dedication | **to sharine / statuscrawler, the flawless girl with the flawless stories.

**Song | **counting stars by OneRepublic.

**Pairing | **derrick and massie

* * *

Derrick hadn't known how difficult it was to sleep while in love until he had met Massie, and he hadn't known how easy it was to fall in love until their eyes first met.

He had never believed in love at first sight until the phenomenon occurred, and he had imagined that true love was something learned, not something stumbled upon.

Massie Block was a song that constantly played in his head, the gentle chords vibrating against his mind and breaking down any walls he would try to form against the world. She was a melody painfully beautiful, a tune he could never hum.

She was the girl of both his dreams and his nightmares. Sweet dreams were made of her vanilla skin, and beautiful nightmares were created from her tears.

He could never memorize the satin of her skin or beauty of her face, yet she stayed in his mind like a beautifully torturous memory of shattered perfection.

His forgiving dreams were made of running away with her, leaving the world behind and throwing everything but each other into the stars.

His mind easily painted the picture of lying side by side with Massie, backs to the grass and eyes to the universe as they slept in some empty park, bathed by only each other. He would whisper sweet nothings into her ear, and she would only smile.

Derrick needed her–she was his sweet salvation, and he felt that he would lose his mind without her face haunting his dreams.

.:.

Massie had been alive eighteen years, but she had never _lived_.

Her half-life had been filled to the top and spilled over with fake smiles and broken promises, slowly killing her from the inside out. Everything she had was plastic, and she was unsure whether or not she had had a real moment in her short life.

The people she stayed by were plastic, and the people who 'admired' her were as fake as they came. Massie knew admiration, and she knew it didn't come with a suppressed hate.

She had no purpose, and she didn't play a role in the lives of the people around her as they pretended. Everything was a game, and nothing was true.

She knew that if she disappeared, it would do more good than harm.

.:.

The longer Massie stayed in Westchester, the more she desired an escape. She wanted to turn her back to the world, and run from anyone she had ever known or loved. Running was the simple solution, but simplicity was what she was scared of.

Her life had been a complex entanglement of lies and betrayal, woven so tightly that she couldn't see an exit. There was only a single gap in the web of lies, but the space was so bright that it blinded her.

The blinding light came in the form of Derrick Harrington.

.:.

They both knew that he loved her.

Every look, breath, and false façade made her believe he loved her more strongly, yet she made no action to show that she reflected the love.

It was killing him.

.:.

One text message was all it took.

Three simple words were all it took for Derrick to lose his mind, and three words were all it took for Derrick to toss his life to the stars and save his princess from her destruction.

Three words, and he was gone.

_Take me away_.

.:.

He was throwing stones at her window with quick movements, hoping to alert her with the rattling of the thick windows.

"Derrick," Her voice was soft as a lullaby as she threw the windows open, looking down at Derrick with shining amber stones. Her light hair blew around her; the lights shining behind her making her look unearthly. "You could've knocked."

"Really, Block? I'm not sure if you're familiar with the act of running away. Usually, it involves ignorant parents and friends, and jumping off a balcony and into your Prince Charming's arms."

"_Jumping off a balcony_? Are you insane?"

"I'm not the one begging to run away with a knight in shining armor." Derrick offered her a smile, a smile she didn't return.

"I don't believe in Prince Charming." Her amber eyes locked with his light brown ones, keeping his gaze for a moment before letting her eyes flicker away.

"Rapunzel, let down your hair." A smile came from the beautiful girl, a genuine one that made his heart break and swell at the same time.

She moved slowly, moving her scantily-clad legs to slip over the balcony, gripping the railing tightly to stand on the outside of the railing. "Derrick…"

"Massie, it's your choice. Stay here or–" Derrick didn't have a chance to finish his sentence–the brunette girl had already jumped off the balcony, so quickly he nearly dropped her in shock.

"Derrick!"

"It's all right, Block." Derrick whispered, his low voice deep in his throat. "I won't let anyone hurt you."

.:.

Massie Block was circling the drain.

Derrick could see the beautiful girl unraveling quickly, shattering more with each mile they travelled away from Westchester.

Home is where the heart is, and Massie's soul had stayed behind in Westchester.

She was scared to travel farther, but she was all the more terrified to go back. She was falling apart, but she knew a return would only cause her to spin away too quickly for her to ever ground herself again.

The pressure of being perfect to Massie was like rolling a heavy boulder up a hill each day only to watch it tumble down the mountain when it reached the top. The work perfection required only came back and lashed away at her whenever it reached her.

She was crumbling away, and cracking under the pressure.

She was already broken.

.:.

Each day, Derrick's heart splintered into smaller and smaller pieces.

He watched as she threw her sorrows aside for moments of peace with random men, giving them shallow moments of pleasure and leaving them the next day.

With each moment, the pressure was erased, but it bounced back when the moment was over.

The moment never ended for Derrick.

He watched her as she broke his heart, and watched as she fled into the beds of men who she would never love, and men who would never be able to care for her. They would never know how fragile she was, and they would never know how thickly she had built the walls around her.

She was damaged perfection, the most beautiful nightmare he had come across.

.:.

Massie's breaking was Derrick's torture, and the string of men she left in her wake was reflected by the river of restrained tears from the blonde boy's end.

He loved the delicate girl so much it pained him, and loved her so deeply that it pained him. The unrequited love he held for her twisted him inside and stabbed into him, cutting him like the sharp end of a whip.

He was unsure if it was in his nature to ever _stop_ loving her–he wished that the painful love would fade, but it only burned brighter with each look, façade, or movement the angel would make.

At night, he looked up to the stars for a shadowed sign of hope.

.:.

Derrick was her lifeline.

She couldn't find the words or movements to love him back, but her entity was connected to his–she _needed_ him to stand next to her, and she felt as though she were dying when she wasn't able to stand by him.

Massie wasn't stupid. She knew she was killing him, and she knew that he was only a shell of a soul, but she didn't care that she was breaking him.

She was slowly dying, but in her death was truly living. She was slipping away, gripping the edge with trembling fingers.

She needed him.

.:.

The scream that came in her sleep was the final snap in the already breaking boy.

Her shriek grated his ears, and her crystalline tears burned into his crumpled soul. Her torture was his, and her anguish tore away at him even more than it did her.

He went to her, bringing the girl into his arms with unsteady breathing and trembling hands, gently soothing her as she cried.

He didn't have a clue why she was crying, but the reason didn't matter to him–he didn't need to know why she was hurt. He only needed to know she was hurt, and he was there. He was always there, and he offered her whatever she needed whenever she needed it.

She looked beautiful when she cried.

.:.

She only took what she needed from the loyal blonde boy, and used him when she was lonely.

He knew the amber-eyed girl was playing him, but he didn't care–being next to her was enough. He loved her too strongly to go against her, and cared too deeply for her to ever say no to her.

He accepted when she urged him to fall into bed with her for a single night of entangled lips and limbs, and stayed beside her in the moments of trembling desire. He obliged when she laid her heavenly lips on his and kissed him roughly, and he followed her to the depths of hell and back again.

He was kept alive by hope.

.:.

Derrick was the only person Massie would allow near as her tears spilled.

She had always hated crying; displaying weakness was something she disdained. The tears that would come when she was broken down were only further proof that she was imperfect, that she was human, that she wasn't the cold plastic she liked to believe she was made of.

She liked to play dress up and pretend she was nothing more than a Barbie, made of plastic and emptiness. Something plastic could not feel, could not cry, could not break.

But Massie wasn't made of plastic.

.:.

Good things scarcely came from a broken girl and burning flames.

Derrick watched the amber-eyed girl watching the fire, her gaze on it intent and filled with heavy contemplations. Her hand clenched and unclenched as she watched, seeming to have to move some part of her body at all times.

"Massie," Derrick said softly, his eyes never leaving the girl. She didn't seem to hear him, so he snapped his fingers at her to attract her attention "Are you there?"

"Why is money so important?" She asked, and he quieted. "It's nothing, yet it's everything. People kill, cry, and change over money, and they hold it to them as though it's their lifeline. It's so valuable, but really, it's just paper."

She pulled out some dollar amount of paper money out of her hand, most likely the thing she had been clenching in her hand. "Just paper."

With trembling hands, she ripped the bill into small pieces, scattering them into the bright flames. The fire swelled, consuming the green paper in moments.

Derrick looked at the girl playing with fire, and smiled.

.:.

They sat in the wet grass, watching as the skies turned black and the stars peaked over the cloudless view. The ends of the grass were sharp, and bit their exposed skin with sharp kisses.

They laid back on the grass, eyes closed, and fingers intertwined. The December air was cold, but they were made warm the brush of heat left by each other's bodies.

Their bodies were made of ice, and their skin was lit on fire. They were dying, and they were killing each other, but each breath of death made them alive.

It was nothing, but it was enough.

So, they looked to the skies, and counted the stars.

* * *

**sharine | **merry christmas to one of my favorite people on fanfiction c: I hope you liked this, and got everything you wanted this Christmas!

leave a review, and have a very merry Christmas!


	3. long live

**Disclaimer | **donut own the clique.

**Authors Note | **hopefully, the flamers have died down [heh flames/fire dying down get it no okay], and I won't be as distracted from updating for a while.

even if I don't know you personally, or you have already requested something, you can always request more, and you can add in prompts if you'd like. but if I don't know you lettuce be friends I like people.

last thing: people say this a lot, but songfics are _not_ against the rules of fanfiction. I looked into it, and found that they are perfectly fine so long as none of the lyrics are directly incorporated into the work.

**Dedication | **joy / outside the crayon box, one of the kindest reviewers on this archive.

**Song | **long live by taylor swift.

**Pairing | **kristen and dempsey

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a little blonde girl who liked to read.

The little girl was always different from other girls her age—she would be trapped within the pages of a novel when her friends would be playing with Barbie dolls, and she would be reading Harry Potter while her friends bathed in the sprinklers a few houses down.

She was strange, but she was perfectly content with that. She didn't feel the need to blend in or stand out so long as she was happy, and she _was_ happy when she was in the lands within the pages.

When she read, she felt no need to be anything but herself. She felt no desire to impress others, and felt no urges to blend into a crowd. She didn't have to think while she read—the words on the pages spoke for her in ways she could never word. Though she was only seven years old, she related to the heroes and heroines more than she had with anyone she had met, and she could find herself hidden between the misunderstood words.

She was an outcast, but when her eyes were on a novel, she didn't _care_. She didn't want to impress anyone, and didn't want to tear herself away from the books she read.

It was hard to rip the blonde girl from her books, but when she was torn away, the images and phrases of the book danced in her mind for every moment until her book was returned. Even when she wasn't buried in a book, she was reading the words she had memorized in her mind, and creating alternate universes where she could rule.

Her name was Kristen Gregory.

.

When Dempsey Solomon was forced upon the town of Westchester, he didn't know what to think—everything was too large for his eight-year-old mind, and everything moved much too quickly for him to focus on.

Wherever he looked, someone was rushing to reach some destination. They didn't care what they came across on the journey, and they didn't care to stop and embrace the visions surrounding them for even a moment. They didn't see the beauty in the world that his young mind could observe already, and never focused on the smaller things that made up the world.

They didn't notice when a scrap of paper spilled from their pockets and onto the pavement—or rather, didn't _care_. They didn't give a damn about the world around them. They didn't notice the caramel-haired boy chasing frantically to dispose of the litter properly—they were too invested in themselves to notice him.

No one cared to keep him company, so he was left to play soccer by himself, waiting for someone to play with him. No such soul came forth, but he pretended he didn't mind the loneliness, and dribbled the ball between his legs with a fake smile on his face.

The soccer ball led him to the only still being in Westchester, falling down to a tree with a reading girl underneath it.

Green eyes met with blue, and he offered her the first smile he had given since he moved to the town.

.

"Dempsey, stop!"

Kristen's voice was filled with laughter, her blue eyes shining brightly as the stars as she thrashed in the arms of the boy who had captured her in some unnamed game.

"Do you want me to let go?" Dempsey inquired. He tightened his grip on her, holding her so that her back was to his chest and her arms were pinned under his. He easily lifted her and walked, trying not to smile as she kicked and thrashed in his grip.

"No, I want you to walk me to the ends of the world. That's why I'm bruising you," Kristen gave him another hard kick, "Like this."

"I don't bruise that easily, Gregory." He loosened his grip for a moment as though to let her fall, earning a shriek from her. "And that proves that you don't want me to let go."

"There's a well-defined line between wanting you to choke the life out of me and wanting you to not smash my face in. This is on the latter end of that line."

Dempsey laughed, and Kristen was unable to let her own laughter tangle into his—no matter how infuriating the boy was, he was the only person who could truly make her smile at the same time, and she loved him for that.

He was her best friend, and she was his. They were both outcasts, but they ignored the rules of perfection and chose to be themselves. It was the only way they could he happy, and they accepted it as that.

.

Nothing could stay the same forever. Change was a given with every situation, and it was unavoidable—no matter how quickly one ran from change, change would always catch up to them and twist the normal in their life into an abyss of questions.

When they grew into their high school years, they found themselves together and separate at the same time. They shared common classes, a common sport, and common friends, but somehow, neither of them could speak more than five words to the other.

Kristen slowly rebelled against her parents—her group of friends were held as queens, and they had a reputation that Kristen's tight bounds would never allow. She was forced to go against her early curfew, dress code, and study times that her mother places, and she was forced to pretend that she didn't know or care that her mother's heart was breaking.

She was the same person, but she wore a disguise of expensive clothes and makeup that only a single person could see through, a person who had cared for her since she was seven and he was eight.

He had to pretend that he didn't care that she was fighting an internal battle to stay the same, and he had to pretend that he didn't notice when she would steal moments to be alone with her books.

He had gone through so much with the girl, and had broken so many walls alongside her, but she didn't care anymore. She didn't care that they had crashed through the walls of the pretense of 'normal'—or if she did, she did not show it.

He doubted that she noticed when he would look at her for a moment too long, or watched her with a knowing smile he could never erase. He was unsure if she noticed anything at all as of late—she was too distracted, and she was beginning to move as quickly as the rest of the crazed town.

She never stopped to remember a moment, and was never trapped in her mind or within the pages of a book—she was simply _trapped_. He didn't know if she had her will any longer, or even _cared_ to keep it, but he tried hard to pretend that he couldn't give a damn about her happiness or freedom.

He knew who she was, and where she needed to be, but he was unsure if _she_ knew.

.

Silence is the worst torture, and it was a cold hell for both Kristen and Dempsey.

They stayed far from each other while they were close to each other. The moments when their eyes locked were the closest contact they had, and even that pleasure was one that came scarcely. The both of them were unsure as to the _why_ of the reason they were forced into silence, but neither of them had the courage to break it.

They were once the rulers of the world within their imaginations, but the barriers they had torn down were slowly building up. The walls were fragile, made of thin glass, and a single blow from the winds of change had shattered their delicate friendship.

Change was unbeatable, inevitable, but it was something that Dempsey had always believed was supposed to better the world. He was unable to see a realm where his agony was _better_, and blind to whatever way that falling in love with a girl who hardly saw him was healthy.

The further their distance, the harder he fell for her. She put him through worlds of torture without knowing, and it was a stab to the gut whenever she would laugh at a joke made by Derrick or reciprocate his flirtations.

He wanted to warn her that Derrick was a master of the fine art of breaking hearts, and caution her that the blonde boy had left a dam of broken tears in his wake, but he couldn't find the words to caution her. He knew her, and knew that trying to turn her away from what she wanted would only encourage her to dive headfirst into it the way she would a book.

He wished it didn't hurt so badly when he witnessed them kiss for the first time. He wished he didn't leave for the bathrooms to cry, and he wished that tears would flow, but all that came was a dry pain. The images of their lips together flashed behind his closed eyes and stayed with him like a bullet wound, lodging deep inside and moving closer to his heart with each memory.

He was tortured when they were beside each other, but he was dead when they were apart. The split in the "lovers" had cracked Kristen's beautiful heart, and he ached to bring the girl into his arms and whisper into her ears that she was all right, but he _couldn't_. He couldn't provide a fake reason for why Derrick cheated on her when he knew them both, and he knew that he couldn't console her with fake lies.

Derrick had fallen in love with the master of breaking hearts, and fallen into bed with her at the same time. He loved the girl, and was compelled away from the girl who loved _him_ when he looked into the amber eyes of Kristen's best friend.

The fact that Kristen and the temptress were so close was like a knife being plunged and twisted into her heart, left there for her slow death. She felt as though she was being killed softly for she was—she knew only a single person who could console her, and she had left him behind years ago.

Kristen missed her best friend, but she had too much pride to go back to him. She tried to pretend she didn't need him when she was too scared to face him, and tried to act as though she didn't miss his strong arms and olive eyes.

She was alone, but this time, she couldn't shutter herself within the pages of a book.

.

Kristen felt like high school was simply a shelter from the real world. The tears and troubles faced in the plastic definition of life were nothing compared to the flooding waters of confusion real life brought, and she wasn't prepared.

The rain was pouring down on her, soaking her through to the bone in her tank top and jeans with racks of cold chills that refused to cease. She was trapped, too far from home to walk; yet the car she was trying to get into was locked from the inside. It was a small problem, nothing worth crying over, yet she felt weak, cold, and numb.

She had to hold herself back from smashing a window with a rock—she was unstable, and felt as though the car's refusal to unlock was only a sign that her life would go only further down the hill of turmoil before it would turn up.

Her hand curled into a fist, slamming against the window in a pathetic attempt to break the window. She felt her knees waver, but before her legs could give out completely, a hand came to pin her elbow to the car in a way both gentle and firm.

"Kristen," The smooth voice that came was enough to make her cringe, much too familiar and distant at the same time, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, I don't know, what am I doing?" Kristen asked, her voice tilting towards an edge of instability. "It's one of the coldest days of this year, it's _raining_, and I'm locked out of my car. If I could get into my car, I would have nowhere to go. My mother hates me, my 'friends' have forgotten about me, and my father is God knows where—where do I have to go? What can I do?"

"Kristen—"

"I have no one, Dempsey. I pushed away everyone in my life that was good for me, and held everyone who was detrimental to me close. I don't have anyone to be with, and I don't have anywhere to go. I—"

"_Kristen_."

"What? What could—"

She didn't have a chance to finish her sentence before gentle lips laid themselves on hers. His mouth was soft, barely moving, but every movement of the sweet lips on hers sent signals of both alarm and pleasure through her veins. Her skin was cold to the rain, but she was filled with a burning sensation, and she was kissed by a liquid fire running through her blood.

For a moment, she was still in shock, but that wasn't the type of person she was. She was fierce, and she burned too brightly for simple rain to put out. Her arms snaked around his neck, and her lips moved to kiss his back roughly.

She found herself pressed against the car in a way that should have been uncomfortable, but the position was anything but. The cold rain was boring through her skin, and she had the metal and glass of the car pressed into her back, but she could only dimly register the taste of his lips, clean as the water and sweet as vanilla, and the feel of his body against hers.

For once, Kristen Gregory's mind stopped working.

.

Their pretences had washed away, but the both of them hoped that the twisting change was permanent—they were both scared to be separated again, and they were terrified of being as alone as they were when they were distanced.

They lived together in their imaginary realm in the sky, and they shared a life far from judging eyes. They ignored the people surrounding them that watched them harshly—they didn't need to pay attention to the people around them because they had each other, and could stay by each other with nothing but gentle smiles and laughing eyes.

When they were next to each other, their bodies were full of fire and their eyes were illuminated by incandescent lights.

"Will you remember me?" Kristen whispered one day, bathing in the stars next to him.

"Remember you?" Dempsey's voice was soft, laced in silk. His voice always changed when he was beside the beautiful girl, turning into something soft and smooth even when he was upset with her.

"When you grow old, and you have a wife and kids. Will you remember me?"

"No." Dempsey said, and Kristen looked to him. "I won't need to remember you, because you'll be beside me. I won't need to look to pictures and point out the one that got away to my children because they'll know what their mother looks like."

"Dempsey, I—"

"I love you, Kristen. And someday, I _will_ marry you." Dempsey's voice was stated as a fact rather than a demand, and the nature of the words made Kristen smile.

"I believe you."

And she did.


End file.
